Friday, 16 June 2017

June 16, 2017 Chautauqua

Beth's Ponderings

The other day I was
listening to a speaker who informed his listeners that he was the ONLY one with
the true facts on the subject being presented.

I didn’t agree.

The speaker, as I
am at this moment, was merely expressing an opinion, and contrary to what he
said, it was solely his, as this is solely mine, opinion, and though there are
some who would have agreed with him, his opinion was not that shared by the
entire world.

Even when he quoted
the various experts and authorities that he based his premise on, he was still
just offering us his opinion, and his version or interpretation of the
material, which may have been correct, or it may not have been.

Was he telling the
truth? He thought he was. Am I?
I think I am. Yet, someone else,
with a different opinion, and different information, could come along and - with
their different viewpoint - reveal something totally different. It all depends on how the situation is
interpreted.

As for whether what
he was presenting consisted of true facts, well, I reserve judgement on that
too. Excuse me...but how many years did
the Europeans believe BEYOND ANY DOUBT that the world was as flat as a pancake
and the sky was an upside down bowl over their heads? That was an indisputable “fact” that everyone
knew.

I do have to
qualify that it was an European belief because pretty much every indigenous
tribe around the globe, as well as the ancient Chinese and some northern pre-Celtic
peoples, knew that the world was indeed round, not flat.

And how many of the
“facts” that we learned in school have now been proven to be false, or at the
very least, incomplete, in all areas of life?
Just because “everyone” believes something, doesn’t make it right or
true.

As humans we love
to create, and then mindlessly cling to, certainties in our lives, yet, there is
no certainty, really. We like to think
the sun will rise tomorrow (the most certain event in our lives) - and chances
are pretty good it will - but we have no certainly it will till we see it rise.